Hearing those who praised the Troika's austerity process until they were blue in the face complain today about "European interference against a 'democratic sovereign country'" could have been the start of a good joke. It is not. A 🧵 1/



After attacking the European Parliament *for doing its job* in response to the European Resolution, the Greek government and its 🤡 jesters have now set their sights on the European Public Prosecutors’ Office (EPPO). 2/

https://x.com/PRoufos/status/1755564047406117021?s=20

European elections, lies and personal data.

A thread about (yet another) example of governmental indifference towards the rule of law and what it tells us about the political landscape of Greece. 1/ 🧵 Last Friday, hundreds (if not thousands) of expatriate Greek voters opened their personal email accounts to find an email/newsletter sent to them by New Democracy MEP Asimakopoulou. The newsletter contained information about voting in the upcoming EU elections from abroad. 2/

Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution raising "grave concerns about very serious threats to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights" in Greece. This came after repeated reports from EU and non-EU organisations about their visible decline. 1/ A majority of MEPs (330 vs 254) expressed their concern about violations contrary to compliance, among others, to Art. 2 and Art. 7, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, human rights treaties of the UN & Council of Europe 2/

Today, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling against the Greek state that opens up a window to think back at some of the events from the far-distant 2012, a year of revolt, trials and tribulations. So here is a long thread to explain the case and add some context. 1/ More than a memory trip, this thread also serves as a way of retracing the steps that led us to the contemporary bottomless abyss of authoritarian/far-right normalisation and dehumanisation. And the people who contributed to it. 2/

While people in Greece are still trying to fathom the shocking devastation from the flooding of Thessaly - initial reports speak of a loss of 22% of total agricultural capacity, a minimum of 5 years before the land can be fertile & a daily increase in the number of dead 1/ >> government ministers and friendly media are celebrating the recent upgrade of the country's Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency – Issuer Ratings from BB (high) to BBB (low), by the DBRS ratings agency (one of the 4 that the ECB recognises). 2/

After many days of silence the Greek PM gave a speech today in Parliament. What he said was even worse than what one would have expected. Tons of comments to be made (possibly a longer thread will follow) but I'll start with the most strikingly appalling one: 1/ He claimed that the 18 migrants who died in the massive fire in Evros "should not have been in the forest", especially since an evacuation warning was sent (in two languages). Their death was, in short, their fault. Now picture the same statement but if the dead were Greeks. 2/

Make no mistake: in the future, these days will be remembered not only for the ecological devastation that took place in Greece in the summer of 2023 but as a key conjunctural point of the country’s final descent into fascism. 1/ There are currently hundreds of wildfires in different parts of Greece. This is an official list that shows the largest ones. “Εκτός ελέγχου” means “out of control". 2/

In December 1945, a small number of Greeks boarded the ship Mataroa. Many of them would become highly renowned in fields like philosophy, art, literature and radical politics. This is a long thread on a journey that changed history. 1/ The ship was returning from Palestine, where it had brought Jewish survivors of the holocaust. It was then chartered by the French Institute of Athens to bring the first batch of a couple hundred Greeks who had been granted scholarships for graduate studies in Paris. 2/

Observing the devastating fires in Algeria, Sicily, Rhodes etc the fault lines of a political divide that will determine the next years and the unavoidable struggles against apocalypse are already visible. 1/

There are two main issues at stake right now: climate change and state capacity/preparation for it. Looking at politicians’ statements, media coverage and social media comments (the difference between them collapsing every day) >> 2/

1. Ever since the Pylos disaster I have not noticed any comparison with the Lampedusa tragedy of 2013. Back then, a boat with more than 400 migrants issued a distress call when the engine gave up. The Italian coast guard responded & saved 155 people. 360 never made it. 2. The Pylos disaster has claimed more victims. Yet the death toll is not the only thing that separates the two catastrophes. A cursory examination of the way Lampedusa was reported at the time and how officials reacted reveals a much more ominous fact: >>

1. Let’s make it clear for those who pretend not to understand: the decision to migrate has nothing to do with the existence or absence of a wall, a border fence, of militarised cops or subcontracted militias in the oceans. 2. Building walls, putting up fences, doing pushbacks and funding slave-trading militias as border guards does not stop migration. It only determines its path and the degree of danger of the journey.

“If it was your son” by Sergio Guttilla, 2018 Original Italian version

Debating the ratification of the Schuman Plan that led to the inauguration of the European Coal & Steel Community, the first formal step towards European integration, ca. 1950. And some 'related concerns':

Thread.

Yesterday the Press Officer of New Democracy openly threatened members of the muslim/Turkish minority of of Rodopi with depriving them of the “self-evident rights enjoyed by all Greek citizens” if they failed to support “MPs who promote Greek national policies”. 1/ Such profoundly authoritarian, nationalist and frankly unconstitutional statements have, unfortunately, become common place. Their proliferation in recent weeks can be explained by examining this map that portrays the electoral results of May 2023. 2/

1. One of the most important composers of contemporary Greece, Giannis Markopoulos, died a few days ago at 84. Like many others of his generation, his songs were often music compositions set to sublime poems, which made the latter immediately accessible to a wider public. With a tune that gets stuck on one’s mind even after just one listen, perhaps his most famous song is Μαλαματένια λόγια (roughly translated as “words of gold”). It is without doubt the most iconic song of the post-dictatorship era (μεταπολίτευση).

3d and final day of the Crisis capitalism, shadow banking and central banks conference in Hanover. Sessions start with @Prof_Scherrer on crypto assets in the shadow of the great financial crisis Asking questions about the relationship between regulation of big banks & the growth of crypto and why governments are promoting crypto, @Prof_Scherrer uses a Kindleberger/Minsky framework to understand the economic & a hegemony/Gramscian for the political logic of crypto >>

🧵on Syriza and its monumental defeat.

Let’s be clear about something. Syriza is the party that took advantage of the collapse of Pasok and the dissatisfaction towards ND because both these parties implemented harsh austerity. That in 2015. 1/ Once in power, it became the party that accelerated austerity, always under the pretence that they had “no choice” due to pressure from the Troika (some, more cynically, would compare that with the “there is no alternative” trope). 2/

Almost two weeks ago I had a motorcycle accident during which I dislocated my shoulder. A series of hospital and orthopaedic visits later, it was clear that only surgery could fix the specific (3d degree) dislocation. 1/ That surgery took place 5 days ago & it involved screwing a metal plaque to bring the bones back in place. The days after the operation are extremely painful. One can only go through them with lots of rest, painkillers and the care of others. 2/

Long thread on liberalism and police violence.
We know that during the interwar period a decisive amount of liberals fully supported authoritarian “solutions” to social antagonism, a process that often culminated in the open support of fascism and Nazism. 1/ One of the key justifications for that was the threat of communism/socialism and the way it sought to undermine the world of property. But we can further qualify this: 2/

In preparation for my review of @stefeich's Currency of Politics, slowly entering the rabbit hole of theories of money. First stop, the Yap island and this incredible story in relation to its 𝑓𝑒𝑖 "currency", as recounted by Keynes' 1915 "The Island of Stone Money".

Don't want to make too much out of it but I remain bewildered by the logical/temporal inconsistency of this passage by Adam Smith on the origin of money. Why would a butcher have a *shop* if they only produce for themselves to consume? 🤔

Worthwhile discussion with @adam_tooze on the @eurotrashpod on the question of elite coherence in the process of European integration, the Eurozone crisis and after. Some comments though: 1/

https://twitter.com/eurotrashpod/status/1602434133074001920

I disagree with two conceptualisations of elite coherence/closure which are at times invoked here but which also create a wider framework for looking at European integration in general: 2/